The term habitus refers to a set of dispositions that promotes a certain behaviour in a human being. It is a person’s way of being as is developed throughout life and provides the
basis for the individual’s perception, worldview, taste, language and manners of
communication. The formation of the habitus is not a conscious process of verbalization of direction (Bourdieu, 2009), as much as it is transmitted as non-verbal responses to actions.
Perhaps a hard look when the child is running down the hallway, or a raised eyebrow as the child slouches ate the dinner table suggests a change in behaviour as much as the verbal “Sit straight”. The habitus is incorporated through the most mundane practices of everyday life. It is the culture incorporated in the individual and its expression in social practice.
In other words, it is a reflection of the social conditions under which an individual is raised. They are ingrained in the very being of the agent though not consciously gained or expressed. These dispositions are transposable to other fields than the one in which they were originally acquired (Bourdieu, 2009).
Accordingly, habitus shapes the agents behaviour, perception, responses and
expressions, a sense of how to act, even in circumstances that are different from those under which the dispositions were attained to begin with. That said, the practices and perceptions of the individual is not so much the product of habitus. An individual does not act in a vacuum.
Actions take place in social context. Therefore an action might be viewed as the product of the relation between the habitus (Bourdieu, 2009, p. 14) and the field within which it plays out.
On a side note, the term field refers to the arena or setting in which capital is acquired, distributed, converted and maintained. When the individual, or in Bourdieu’s’ term agent, has a common interest with that of an institution it creates a field, that s further maintained by being a common interest of the agents and institution. An example would be the field of social studies. It is not the University that is the field, but the institution and the agents that shares an interest and struggles to acquire knowledge, maintain what is considered to be legit
knowledge or perhaps even change what is. It is also the field for another struggle, that of those who are in possession of one form of capital and strives to exchange that for another.
The term capital is one borrowed from Karl Marx, and does not refer to the capital of economics, though Bourdieu does not disregard the value of money or material goods. In the context of his sociology, however, capital is more akin to various traits or qualities that a person is in possession of that is of more or less value within a field and enables the agent to move with more or less proficiency within that same field. And so, economic capital and material means aside, Bourdieu names the three forms social, cultural and symbolic capital. In the following, we shall explore these terms further.
Starting with the term cultural capital this refers to knowledge or skills that enables the agent to move within the field where this is practiced and valued (Wilken, 2008). This can take the shape of education, abilities or another form of competence that the agent is in
possession of which in turn might prove a resource in certain contexts. An example of this is the language used within academia. The more proficient the agent is in understanding and employing the language considered legitimate within his field of study, for instance economy or sociology, the more the agent is likely to profit from this capital. In this case the profit is gained is represented in terms of good results in tests and exams and perhaps even social capital as the agent displays his mastery of the dominant culture. Those who show less proficiency in the field are often found to have a shorter lifespan within that field. This goes in particular for the field of education, which in turn is where the dominant or legitimate culture is reproduced. We shall explore the implications of this further later on in the text.
The social capital is linked to how an agent benefits from his or her social connections and the network the agent partakes in. To give a crude example, the agent is a physics student who is having problems understanding a passage in a book. But his aunt is a science professor
at another university, so he calls her on Skype and she explains it to him in a way he understands.
Social capital is the resources the agent is in possession of as a member of a specific group, and the agents ability to profit from these resources (Järvin, 1996). What is more, the relationships implied within the group needs tending to continuously, in order for the agent to have continuous access to these resources, even though it is rare for agents to make a
conscious effort at investing in and accumulating social capital.
I will try to exemplify the terms by using an example from a rural district. There are many smaller farms in the area, and all the farmers know each other. The institution in our example is the idea of farming, and the farmers are the agents. Without either the field that is the practice of farming, be it potatoes, cows or sheep, can’t be constituted. In this particular field, being in possession of a Da Vinci painting, which could be viewed as one form of cultural capital, is of little value lest it enables the farmer to profit from it, perhaps by selling it to purchase something that he might benefit from in his work on the farm.
The farmers provide each other with a social network – resources, in that they can exchange experiences and help one another when it is needed. As members of the network, though the farmers themselves would not see it as such, they are in possession of social capital. When they ask one another for help, they profit from that capital.
Further, each farmer has special knowledge or skills, ranging from a knack for fixing a tractor that’s malfunctioning to shearing sheep and even unto how to take care of a sick animal or hunting foxes that threaten the animals. They all are in possession of the skills needed, but some are more skilled in this or that than the others, and sometimes one just needs another set of hands that knows equally well what to do.
The competence the farmers are in possession of can be viewed as cultural capital – useless in the halls of the Parliament, but invaluable in the field that the farmers inhabit.
Conversely, a highly skilled debater would have little use of his ability come harvest time at the farm.
There is however, one farmer who, while quick to ask for assistance, himself, is less willing when asked and seldom offers. The other farmers are annoyed by this, as they seldom receive any help in return and as time goes by they become less inclined to aid this farmer.
This farmer has failed to tend to his network and so his social capital has decreased, as he is no longer able to reap the benefits from it.
The last form of capital, in Bourdieu’s terms, is symbolic capital. This might refer to the agent’s ability to convert one form of capital into another. The aforementioned skilled debater has been able to profit from his ability to argue for his views by gaining a standing within the field. Nevertheless, in the world of the farmer, this would bring him little or no reward, and he would benefit far more from an ability to learn from the farmer whose very being has been shaped over the years by working the farm.
In this particular field, that rare Da Vinci mentioned earlier is of little value, however it would be a marker of prestige and distinction hanging in the manor of an agent inhabiting the higher reaches of society. Or, for that matter, in the event that the farmers also have an interest in art, however that would bring on a change of field and not be of value for the agent in his position as a farmer.
The owner gains symbolic capital by having ownership of this material good in a field where it is valued. Not because he or she is in possession of a material good in itself, but because it is a representation of distinction and good taste. Likewise, being a professor at a university is another form of symbolic capital – the prestige and repute accompanying the
cultural capital the agent is in possession of by holding a specific knowledge at a level that is recognized and valued within the field.